The Experiment
by Runescribe
Summary: They need help. But they don't know how to reach the Doctor, and he doesn't want to come...Post Doomsday, so spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One - The Doctor**

My heart is broken.

Such a silly phrase. All metaphor and ignorance. So human.

But it's true. My heart is broken. The heart of me, the core of me, _I_ am broken. Split up into a thousand little pieces and all of them cutting at me.

I don't know what to do.

All those little voices in the back of my mind saying _coward! murderer! useless stupid useless bloody fool, you've lost her, she's gone and she'll always hate you now all you had to do was say goodbye couldn't even do that properly..._all the little voices are drowning under a single unbearable scream.

_Rose_

Rose is- Rose is- I can't. Even to myself I can't say it. I can't.

I can't.

I can't.

I can't, because maybe, maybe someday, maybe if I wish hard enough, hope long enough, believe enough, maybe it might not be true, maybe she might be here, maybe I might wake up.

I'm so lonely. I can't bear it. I'm so lonely the stars themselves ought to be swallowed up in it. How can the world still be here? How can it just carry on? Why hasn't it ended?

She was part of me. She was everything. Even knowing what she was, even knowing how soon she would die, with everything I was I loved her. I never even got to say it. The universe healed too fast and it killed me.

Why didn't it kill me?

**A/N** Short and depressing, I know. These chapters - soliloquies from the Doctor - will be interspersed with the same thing from OC's. I promise there will be plot, and I'll make sure you know who is talking. I'm experimenting. Be nice. And review, because if you don't, how will I know you're being nice?


	2. Chapter 2 Charlie

**Chapter Two - Charlie**

I saw him again today. The lonely man. He was crying. I wish he wasn't so sad. He used to be so happy, when the girl was there, but she isn't there anymore.

I told the others. Chloe and Gareth, I mean, not the adults. I don't tell the adults anything I see unless they've told me to see it. They get mad.

Chloe says we should ask him to come help us. Now, she says, so we won't have to leave anyone behind. I know what she meant. She meant before the scientists start making more of us, because then the babies would be too little to escape. But Gareth doesn't like it. He didn't say it but I don't think he trusts the man I saw. He'll do it though. He always does what Chloe wants in the end.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll show him what I know about the man, and then he will trust him.


	3. Chapter 3 Gareth

**Chapter Three - Gareth**

I don't think this is going to work.

Don't get me wrong. I want it to work. I want to get out of here any way I can, even if it means shouting at the top of my mind for a man a seven-year-old saw in a vision.

Sheesh, this life we live is weird.

The thing is, we don't even know if he can hear us. Charlie showed me what he's seen of the man and he's a good man, he'll help if he can, but if he doesn't know he can't help. I've been calling every chance I get. In between tasks, before the drugs take effect after experiments, any time I can use my telepathy I have. So have the others; so have we all together when we've been merged. But Charlie's seen nothing more.

This may be hopeless. But it would be worse not to try. I've felt Chloe's mind, when they're giving us the injections after a session, and if this doesn't end soon she'll snap and kill someone, maybe even everyone, trying to get out. There are times I don't know how she holds it together, how any of the telekinetics manage to keep control.

I don't think this is going to work. But it has to. So I'll keep sending, like Charlie says.

_2103_

_Under the Alps_

_Help us_


	4. Chapter 4 The Doctor

**Chapter Four - The Doctor**

She's gone.

If the universe had any decency it would have ended at that point.

But it apparently hasn't. Someone's calling me. Stupid idiots, don't they know the world's ended?

_2103 AD. Under the Jungfrau._

Same thing, over and over. The psychic paper's picking it up. It's weird, though, it comes and goes like whoever-it-is has to snatch moments to send it.

_February 2103. Jungfrau._

It's the same message but it changes and that's strange. Almost like more than one person is sending it.

_In the lab and it's nearly lunchtime._

That was a child. That must have been a child.

They're sending me time and place.

Oh, what the hell. Hold on, kid, I'm coming.


	5. Chapter 5 Chloe

**Chapter Five - Chloe**

More has happened in the last ten minutes than the rest of my life put together.

Well, alright, not literally. Only if you only count important stuff.

He came. The man the telepaths have been calling to, the man Charlie saw, he actually came. In a big, blue, noisy box. I know what to call him now.

The Doctor.

Not the most reassuring name, at least not from our point of view. Doctors have never done us much good before. This Doctor, though, I trust.

He says he'll help. I had to explain why we need him, who we are, all that kind of thing. He went very quiet and very, very angry. I'm glad he's on our side.

We decided weeks ago that I should be spokesperson; partly because I'm the oldest, partly because I'm good at explaining and mostly because everyone's used to me being in charge.

All the same, it was scary talking to the Doctor. Charlie hasn't seen much, but judging by what he has seen this is a bad man to cross. And, it turns out, a man with a ver cool ship and an equally cool and highly efficient method of opening doors.

He's opening the secure lab, looking for the activation drugs. I have to get the others. It's a good thing Dave reprogrammed all the doors.


	6. Chapter 6 The Doctor

**Chapter Six - The Doctor**

This is horrible. I never imagined this.

Bad enough to experiment on children, bad enough to create them for that purpose. But to suppress their abilities with drugs, to only let them be telepaths or telekinetics or seers when you want something from them, that is unforgivable. They are using these kids as lab rats and it's killing them.

So I'm going to stop it.

The first thing is to free the kids. Poor little things, the youngest is only three. Antidote to the drugs they're kept on is somewhere in this lab, at least according to Chloe. She's the oldest, can't be more than fifteen herself. Nice kid.

Ah, here we are. And look, yet more evidence of how unpleasant this whole outfit is. These syringes are numbered, barcoded, individually labelled in every way possible. Except names, of course. Rats don't need names.


	7. Chapter 7 Gareth

**Chapter Seven - Gareth**

We did it! We actually did it! We're going to escape!

He came. I can't quite believe it yet but he came. He's calling out ID's, matching everyone up to the right injection. Chloe is still bringing the littlest ones in.

Hush, Babs! Please, be quiet or we'll be caught. I know it hurts but please, shush!

My turn.

Oh, that's better. That is so much better I don't have the words for it. There are people in the world again. Here are the telepaths...the kinetics...the seers...and that must be the Doctor. What a strange shape mind. Definitely not human.

There are the humans, right away at the edge of my range. My range on my own, that is. We're all here now, all the injections have done their work.

It's time.


	8. Chapter 8 The Merge

**Chapter Eight - The Merge**

We are one.

We are whole.

We are angry.

You cower before us. Pitiful humans. You have no understanding. We are the children. We are the experiments. We are free.

You tortured us. Kept us in the dark. Stole our minds from us. You caged us. All that we know we have stolen from your minds. You thought we were animals. We know you are. We will kill you.

You created us.

Do you hear that? We have broken your equipment, destroyed your records, ended your cruelty. You will torment no more children.

Do not try to move. We have you in our power and we will do what we wish. Here is the door, here is the tunnel. Here is the world beyond. Here you will stay, outside, away from us and the tools of your crimes.

You gave us life. We give you life.

We owe you no debt.


	9. Chapter 9 The Doctor

**Chapter Nine - The Doctor**

These kids didn't need me. All they needed was a key.

The experiments are over. They saw to that. They tore the laboratories to pieces, there's nothing left bigger than a breadcrumb. Thirty children, ten kinetics, just did more than I could do in a week and they aren't even sweating.

I know who they are now. These are the Thirty. A legend from Duan says they were the first of the species. Well, by the time humans make contact with Duan in a few centuries it'll be a legend. First they have to grow up, learn to farm, have kids, all the stuff everyone does. They'll have no trouble. The seers can reach a thousand worlds from there, they can copy any technology they like.

And I'll go on. Alone. I was going to ask Chloe to come with me but I can't now, not since I saw them merge their minds like that. She belongs with them.

Time to go, kids. Off to a new world. All yours.

Not so far from humans as they like to think, this lot. Yes, it's bigger on the inside. Yes, that was a stupid question. Well done. Not many people notice that.


	10. Epilogue Gareth

**Epilogue - Gareth**

The doctor freed us, brought us here, gave us hope. Today we did what we could to repay him.

He had a friend, not long ago, and more than a friend. He loved her.

If she had died, we couldn't have helped. But she didn't die. She's still alive, away beyond the reach of time or space, beyond the universe. But if you look at it right, she's only beside the universe. And when the seers merge, even the walls of reality are no barrier.

I told him what we could do. He closed in on himself, afraid to think about what he'd lost. He took a long time to decide, but in the end he said: Yes.

So the seers merged, and I made the link so he could see what they saw, and we showed him Rose.

Rose, working to use what she knew, saving the world whenever it needed it.

Rose on her twenty-first birthday, laughing and happy and insisting on having fairy cakes.

Rose, with her baby brother in her arms.

Rose in her forties, newly appointed head of the Torchwood Institute, celebrating with family and friends and powerful acquaintances, making a toast only three others in the room truly understood. _"To the Doctor!"_

It was a long time before he spoke, and all he said was a simple thanks. We knew what he meant.

He is standing by his ship, over there at the edge of the trees. I can feel Chloe watching him. He doesn't dare ask her to come with him, and it hasn't occurred to her that he might want her to.

_Go on. Go to him. When you've satisfied that wanderlust, come back to us._

She is running to him. She is there. I can feel the laughter like pearls at the edge of her mind. He is surprised and uncertain and a little nervous. But now they are gone, and I am comforted by Babs taking my hand in her tiny one and telling me, with perfect certainty, that my Chloe will come back to me.

**A/N** Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed the ride.


End file.
